Ceremonies were held across the country on Sunday to commemorate the anniversary of the return of the late Imam Khomeini from exile under the rule of the deposed dictator Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
School bells were sounded nationwide at 9:33, the exact time when Imam Khomeini entered Mehrabad International Airport on February 1, 1979. Education Minister Ali Asghar Fani and other high-ranking officials at the ministry attended a ceremony at a school in Tehran where the "bell of revolution" was sounded symbolically.
The motorcyclists of the armed forces and the Basij force held a parade from Mehrabad International Airport to the mausoleum of Imam Khomeini in the south of the metro Tehran area and military helicopters threw flowers along the roads taken by the convoy of the late Imam from the airport to the Behesht-e Zahra cemetery located near the present-day mausoleum, where the founder of the Islamic Republic delivered a landmark speech.
The ten days after Imam's return are called the Ten-Day Dawn in Iran because the victory of the Islamic Revolution occurred on February 11, 1979. The occasion is commemorated annually by holding celebrations, rallies and speeches. In a symbolic performance, ceremonies which had been held upon Imam Khomeini's arrival were replicated at the Terminal 1 of Mehrabad International Airport.
Former parliament speaker Ali Akbar Nateq-Nouri, who escorted Imam Khomeini on the historic day, made a speech at the terminal, in which he recounted his memories of the day.
